Focusing in on employability: using content analysis to explore the employability discourse in UK and USA universities

Abstract

In this paper, we have taken initial steps towards highlighting the employability discourse in higher education by using content analysis to explore website data at 40 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and 40 HEIs in the USA by searching for 'employability' in respective web engines. The findings from our preliminary data analysis were inserted into a MIT SIMILE software package to create a bespoke, interactive webpage that could be disseminated for discussion by higher education managers. The initial findings suggest that, in the UK, the broad discourse is centred upon government policies and targeted preparation for employment while in the USA it is centred upon the institutional vision and social inclusion agenda. Recent graduates' views were sought on these initial findings to validate whether their experiences corroborated with our suggested employability discourse claims. These insights are a useful first step for HEIs to question and re-evaluate employability at an institutional level.

Educación para la empleabilidad: enfoque de la investigación educativa

“…El problema del desempleo en jóvenes recién egresados de IES está documentado y tiene lugar en diferentes países como Estados Unidos (Cunningham, 2016), Chile (Arias, 2018), México (Moctezuma et al, 2013) y algunos países europeos (Eliška, 2016;Chadha y Toner, 2017). En todos estos casos, los jóvenes que pertenecen a grupos de bajo nivel socioeconómico tienden a ser los más afectados.…”

“…En opinión de algunos autores, las IES no deben estar exentas de rendir cuentas sobre su impacto en la industria mediante la contribución de profesionistas que reúnan las características de la demanda en el mercado laboral (Wolff y Booth, 2017;Chadha y Toner, 2017). En este sentido, no es de sorprender que, según la Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo, en el primer trimestre del 2018 más de 807 mil personas con niveles educativos de educación media superior y superior en México se encontraban desempleados (INEGI, 2018).…”

“…En concreto, este estudio tiene dos aportaciones. Primero, apoya a la industria de la educación ante la creciente presión por cumplir con las expectativas de la comunidad respecto a la empleabilidad de los egresados de IES (Chadha y Toner, 2017). Segundo, revisa las contribuciones a la investigación sobre empleabilidad bajo un enfoque congruente con SoTL originalmente propuesto por Boyer para señalar la congruencia entre la docencia, el servicio institucional y la investigación educativa.…”

Peer Review #2 of "Taking advantage of the software product line paradigm to generate customized user interfaces for decision-making processes: a case study on university employability (v0.1)"

“…However, this concept is still far away from having a straightforward definition (Chadha & Toner 2017). As the literature suggests, employability can be seen as a capability to gain employment or as a set of skills and knowledge required to perform effectively in the workplace, among other definitions (Confederation of British Industry 2009; Hillage & Pollard 1998;Yorke 2006).…”

The Role and Effectiveness of Coaching in Increasing Self-Efficacy and Employability Efforts of Higher Education Students

“…These issues are further compounded by the importance of the league tables. Preoccupation with academic rankings not only leads to a materialistic mindset in academia [46] but it also affects students' prospective graduate employment [7][40] [51]. The top of the league tables is occupied by the Russell Group whose students mostly come from privileged, highly socially selected backgrounds [40] [51].…”